and just this fall hurricane sandy disrupted shellfisheries all along the oft coast. coastal economies such as in my home state of rhode island are threatened in other ways by sea level eyes and he can extreme storms. the rhode island economic development council notes that tourism in rhode island is at the absolute center of our summer economy. people come from all across the nation to come to rhode island in the summer to enjoy our beautiful beaches, to enjoy our sparkling bay, to sail, to participate in all of the beachside activities, and damage to that economy would be very significant. we are rebuilding from sandy so that we will be ready when our beach visitors come this summer, but it's a reminder of how important that economy is to rhode island and a reminder of how vulnerable it is to extreme weather. let's turn to the west where by august of this year more than six million acres had burned in wildfires. a new analysis by nasa predicts that by the middle of the century, we can expect to match the severity of 2012 fires every three to five years. it's going t